LD 52SI 
.T7YS 

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180 



1^64? ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION 



or 



REV. LEWIS ¥. GREEN, D. D., 



AS PRESIDENT OF 



Transylvania University and Stale Normal School, 



NOVEMBER 18, 1856. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE BOARD. 



FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY. 

A. G. HODGES PRINTER. 

1856. 



^ ^A> ADDRESS OF GOV. MOREHEAD. 



By virtue of an act of the General Assembly of Ken- 
tucky Transylvania University has been reorganized, and a 
Normal School established as an important, if not an indis- 
pensable, auxiliary of the Common School system of the 
State. This system, after struggling for existence for many 
years, is at length in successful operation, and to insure its 
perpetuity has been interwoven with our organic law. To 
impart to it the proper degree of efficiency and usefulness it 
is admitted, on all hands, that there should be competent and 
well qualified teachers, in sufficient numbers to meet the pub- 
lic demand. 

To effect this great object the Legislature, in its wisdom, 
has established this sch?)ol, where our own young men can be 
educated in the art of teaching; and we have now assembled 
to inaugurate you, sir, as its ffi^st President under the new 
organization. 

It would be out of place for me to speak of the import- 
ance of such an establishment to the cause of Common 
School education, in which the whole State feels such deep 
and vital interest, and I only rise on behalf of the Trustees, 
whose organ I am, under whose control this Institution has 
been placed, and by whom you have been unanimously elect- 
ed President — and may I not add, also, on behalf of the 
State of Kentucky, whose most cherished institution is sought 
to be promoted — to welcome you back to your native State^ 
and, with a heart glowing with honest pride with the antici- 
pation of triumphant success, to congratulate you on the en- 
larged sphere of usefulness which is open before you. 



Welcome then, most welcome, to the land of your birth. 
Thrice welcome when coming to fill the high and responsible of- 
fice to which you have been invited, the duties of which you are 
60 peculiarly and eminently qualified to discharge. May your 
inauguration on this day be also the inauguration of a sys- 
tem which, with each revolving year, shall advance the cause 
of education until its diffused blessings shall pervade every 
hamlet in our land. 

As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Transylvania 
University, in their name and by their authority, I do here- 
by invest you with the oftice of President of said Universi- 
ty, with all the authority, rights, and franchises appertaining 
thereto. 



ADDRESS OF DR. LEWIS ¥. GREEN. 



Mr. President, and gentlemen of the Board of Trustees : 

I had not intended, sir, to allude at all to any of those 
feelings which would of course be natural to me on the pres- 
ent occasion, but your own kind allusion, and your hearty 
and manly welcome, have broken up the fountains of those 
emotions which I had designed to stifle. I have been, for 
more than sixteen years, an exile from my native State — in 
no dishonorable exile, I hope, yet amidst the uniform kind- 
ness and generous confidence which I have everywhere ex- 
pt'iienced, it was an exile still; for they were not the friends 
of my boyhood; it was not my home. 



I had thought, sir, it would be happiness enough to breathe 
the free air and tread the green sod of my native State once 
m< ire ; to look abroad over the glorious scenery of this good- 
ly land, the pride and glory of all lands; to gaze upon the 
familiar countenances of friends and kindred, and behold the 
classmates and the pupils of my earlier days proudly vindi- 
cating the promise of their youth, filling the highest ofl ces of 
the State, presiding on the bench of Justice, and in the halls 
of Legislation. 

I had thought I should love with you to live, amongst you 
to die; that "the clods of the valley would lie sweeter" 
above my remains if they only slumbered near to kindred 
dust; and that even the morning of the resurrection would 
appear more glorious to me if, amidst the glories of that 
ecstatic vision, my opening eyes might first rest upon the 
countenances of those whom I had loved below. But to re- 
ceive such a welcome, and from such a source, and amidst 
this crowded audience of my countrymen; the tongue falters, 
and words fail to express the depth of my emotions. 

But amidst the pressure of the urgent business of life, 
and the stern demands of duty, brief space is left us for the 
indulgence of feeling, even the mrmliest and noblest. Let 
us turn, then, to the consideiation of those solemn interests 
and high trusts which have been committed to our guardian- 
ship, and for whose especial considemtion we are met to-day. 

The causes that mould the character and decide the destiny 
of nations do not lie upon the surface. They are the inward 
fires, deep-seated in the bosom of the earth, and not the 
showers which fall, or the tempests which beat upon its sur- 
face, that have heaved up its mighty mountains and sunk its 
valleys, and hollowed out its water courses, and given to the 
whole face of external nature its varied aspects of beauty and 
of grandeur. So the soucres of a nation's permanent pros- 
perity and glory must be sought, not in the form of its gov- 
ernment, in the wisdom of its administration, in its written 



6 

constitution, in the equipoise of its diiferent departments, in 
the exquisite adjustment of all their nicely ballanced powers, 
or in any other cunning device of human ingenuity, but deep 
in the heart of society itself; in the healthy, intellectual, 
and moral life that is throbbing there; in all those nameless 
influences radiating from every point, streaming in from eve- 
ry quarter, inhaled at every breath, too minute to be observ- 
ed, too numerous to be calculated, too subtle to be grasped, 
too powerful to be resisted, which constitute the total educa- 
tion of a people; and by their combined efficiency mould the 
whole inward character and outward constitution of society. 

There is a power mightier than that of fleets and armies, as 
there is a glory brighter f-ir than that of victories and triumphs. 
Knowledge is power. Freedom is power. Virtue is power. 
Free, virtuous, enlightened intellect is power — the mightiest 
power that walks the earth; rightiy understood, indeed, the 
only real power recognized amongst men — which includes all 
other power, and subordinates even the mightiest to itself. 
This wields the arm that wields the sword. This penetrates, 
analyzes, comprehends, the mysterious laws and agencies of 
nature, subjugites them to its will, and binds them to its 
service. The winds and the waves obey it, and bear its com- 
merce safely amidst the sweep of the hurricane, and in the 
very face of the tempest and the storm. The everlasting 
mountains open wide their portals to give it pathway; and 
surpassing all the prodigies of fable, and transcending all the 
limits of time and space, the lightning bears, in a single mo- 
ment, beneath the waters of the ocean, and over the breadth 
of continents, its messages of friendship or of business. 
This only develops the physical resources of a land, and un- 
veils its geological structure, and reve-ils the boundless wealth 
that lies hidden often in the soil upon its surface, and the 
minerals within its bosom. This moulds its politcal and so- 
cial institutions, and wisely guides the enterprize of its peo- 
ple, and braces up their energies, and brings into effectual op- 



eration all the elements of physical and intellectual greatness, 
and constitutes, at last, the only distinction between the bar- 
barous tribe and civilzed nation, between the abject slaves of 
despotic power, and enlightened and independent freemen. 
To wield this mightiest of all earthly powers is really to pos- 
sess the mastery of the world, of all nature, and of man. 

It is not surprising, then, that the sagacious potentates of 
Europe, with a wise prevision of the inevitable future, are 
seeking diligently now to develope the intellectual resources 
of their people, and that they cultivate the masses, even on 
selfish principles, as they would any other portion of their 
royal domain, as the surest source of revenue in peace, the 
cheapest and mightiest bulwark against a foreign foe. How 
much more should each free and enlightened State make 
abundant provision for the education of her children, to train 
them up as men and citizens; that they may occupy the 
places their fathers filled, administer the institutions their fa- 
thers founded, and perpetuate the freedom and the glory their 
fathers won by blood. 

If man were, indeed, an insolated individual, born into the 
world without any relation to his kind, his future develop- 
■ ment involving no other interests but his own, might safe- 
ly be confided to himself Were he the member of a single 
family only, bound by no common tie of interest or duty to 
society around, his education and whole future chnracter 
might wisely be entrusted to the exclusive guardianship of 
that patriarchal administration. Were there one universal 
church extending overall the land, including all its individu- 
als and families, pervading all by its spirit of purity and 
love, and really securing the highest intellectual and moral 
culture of the whole, then Arnold's devout imagination of a 
church coextensive with the State, and a christian State 
merged in and identical with the church, would have been 
already realized ; and the education of the whole people, along 
with every other function of the State, might be confided as 



a privilege, if not demanded as a right, by this august imper- 
sonation of the supreme intelligence of God. 

But far beyond the range of individual interests ; beyond 
the limits of family authority ; beyond the reach of organi- 
zed Christianity, in any and in all its forms ; including all, 
protecting all, subordinate to none ; recognized alike by rea- 
son and revelation, and founded in the deepest necessities of 
our social nature, there is another power — the Power of the 
State — whose duties spring from its peculiar relations to the 
interests of all, and whose rights and powers are commen- 
surate with its duties. 

It is, indeed,* the peculiar glory of that divine religionj 
which first taught the dignity of individual man, and inspir- 
ed an interest in his welfare as a rational and immortal being, 
that she first directed attention to the universal education of 
the people, and her humble ministers, as they penetrated our 
primeval forests, bore the ark of science and of religion, side 
by side, on the foremost wave of our advancing population, 
seeking to plant the s&hool house beside the church, and r( ar- 
ing institutions where science should be the hand maid of re- 
ligion, and religion the patroness of science. To depreciate 
the labors and sacrifices of these devoted and truly enlighten- 
ed men, would be not ordinary folly but sheer idiocy. I am 
not here, to-day, to vindicate the truth of Christianity. But 
I will say, as intim itely connected with my subject, that the 
man who does not recognize Christianity as a fact and a power 
— the great central fact in all human history, the central and 
eontrolling power in all modern civilization — has yet to learn 
what be the simplest elements of our modern thought, and is 
himself a living exemplification of the necessity for an im- 
proved common school instruction. All honor to those no- 
ble and heroic men who, in the infancy of our early settle- 
ments, marched before into the wilderness, and planted the 
germs of our existing institutions; who, when the State was 
recreant to her trust, and statesmen thought only of material 



interests, cared for the culture of man's intellectual and mor- 
al nature, and ''out of the depths of their penury" contribu- 
ted more largely to the education of the race, than the rich 
from their overflowing coffers, or the State from its abundant 
treasury. Yes, all honor to the men who laid, in christian 
faith and piety, the first foundations of learning over all our 
land! 

Yet, after all the contributions of individual beneficence; 
after all the efforts of denominational zeal, wide around us, in 
all directions and in all our states, stretches far away an im- 
mense domain of ignorance and vice, a vast multitude, in- 
creasing with incredible rapidity; re-duplicating its millions 
thrice within the period of an ordinary lifetime ; sweeping 
almost boundlessly away beyond the limits of civilization, 
beyond the light of knowledge, beyond the restraints of law 
and moral obligation; and assuming, daily, a loftier attitude 
of defiance against all authority, human and divine. The 
great problem of our day, for the patriot and the christian, 
for the practical statesman and the philanthropist; which is 
forcing itself, at last, on all thinking and unthinking minds; 
which demands to be solved; whose solution becomes every 
day more difficult as it becomes more urgent; which threat- 
ens soon to solve itself in no peaceful wa}^ — the great ques- 
tion of ou.r age and country is — "How shall we best pro- 
vide FOR THESE ACCUMULATING MILLIONS, THE CHILDREN AND FU- 
TURE RULERS OF THE^StATE, AND NOW CONFIDED TO ITS GUARDIANt 
SHIP, THE EDUCATION WHICH SHALL FIT THEM FOR THE DIGNITY 
AND THE DUTIES OF FREE, ENLIGHTENED, AND VIRTUOUS CITIZENS?" 

This question Kentucky has calmly met, and wisely solved, 
by the organization of her Common Schools. 

After a series of years, and by the labors of successive 
superintendents — and especially by the unparalelled energy 
and administrative genins of one whose name is forever ident- 
ified with its history — your system of Common Schools has 
been, at length, fairly and firmly established. Deeply 



10 

grounded in the hearts of the people is the conviction of 
their necessity ; firmly fixed the purpose to sustain them ; 
and the policy by which they were originated, and thus far 
sustained, may be considered as irrevocably settled. But 
vain were all the labors of the past; illusive all hopes for the 
future ; futile all efforts to carry on successfully the noble 
scheme devised by the wisdom and matured by the energy of 
her most gifted sons, if funds be secured, and schools organ- 
ized, and the whole legislative and fiscal machinery complete, 
yet the motive power, the presiding and directing intelligence, 
be wanting. 

A good teacher may create a good school, but no school 
or schools, however wisely organized, or munificently endow- 
ed, can supply for themselves efficient teachers. It soon be- 
came apparent, therefore, to all reflecting minds, that, in or- 
ganizing a system of general education, one of its most es- 
sential elements had been omitted ; that the loudest demand 
of the people, the most urgent necessity of the State, was 
really for the right men — for a corps of tmined and edu- 
cated teachers, born upon the soil, nurtured amidst her insti- 
tutions, imbued with her own spirit, indentified with her in- 
terests and glory, and 'consecrated to her service. Hence, 
from an early period, and through a series of years, success- 
ive superintendents, with extraordinaiy unanimity and ear- 
nestness, have urged annually upon the Legislature, and up- 
on the people, the indispensable necessity of establishing a 
Normal School; a school which should train our own young 
men for this service of their country, not only by more thor- 
ough instruction in the ordinary branches of Common School 
education, but by exhibiting, both in theory and in practice, 
the true principles and best methods of communicating knowl- 
edge. Thus the noble conception of a system for the gener- 
al education of a whole people, spontaneously and irresisti- 
bly expanded into that of a school for the education of the 
teachers themselves, as an indispensable necessity, without 



11 

which the whole system must inevitably prove a failure ; a 
school which should increase their numbers, enlarge their 
knowledge, elevate their character, and give to this most im- 
portant and dignified of all human employments, by its con- 
nection with the highest functions of the State, a social po- 
sition and attractions equal to those enjoyed by other profes- 
. sions. 

Henceforth the Common School is but part of a more 
comprehensive system, derives its life and supplies from a 
superior source, and presupposes the Normal School as its 
neccessary supplement. To establish a magnificient system 
of Common Schools overall the State, and then neglect the 
School which should supply the teachers, would be like the 
wisdom of some sagacious schemer, who should erect a mill 
of huge dimensions and at vast expense, with all its machin- 
ery exquisitely adjusted, and then refuse to supply the 
water and the steam, necessary to set the machinery in mo- 
tion ; or should build a railroad of prodigious length, with 
a long and magnificent array of cars, for freight or passen- 
gers, and then refuse to procure a locomotive, on the frivol- 
ous pretext that a locomotive is no part of a raiiroai, and is 
not mentioned in the body of the law. 

Without the motive power, your mill and your railroad 
are the work of madmen. Without the Normal School, 
your whole scheme of popular education is a failur.:^ ; a mag- 
nificent monument of human folly, and all your past expen- 
diture almost wholly lost. 

THIS is to the system of Common Schools what the water 
and steam are to the mill and the railr^ ad ; at once the foun- 
tain which furnishes the supply — the channel through which 
it is conveyed, and the power which propels it. 

But it is the prerogative of high thoughts and noble pur- 
poses THAT THEY ENGENDER EVER HIGHER AND NOBLER. The ed- 
ucation of a great people, once seriously contemplated, in- 
volves much more than the simple inculcation of the lowest; 



12 

elements of knowledge; and as the patriot statesman medi- 
tated this vast theme, and bis heart expanded with the 
thought of the prodigious energies lying dormant and unde- 
veloped in the bosoms of our young countrymen, the sub- 
ject rose in its grandeur, and expanded beneath his view, un- 
til the truly great conception awoke almost simultaneously 
in many minds, of a system co-extensive with the State, and 
designed for all her citizens; by which she should seek out 
her chosen sons, and open to the poorest and worthiest in ev- 
ery county the highway to the widest knowledge and loftiest 
. eminence, which had previously been open only to the rich. 

It is from such as these that the world's great men 
HAVE EVER sprung! It is from the deep granite foundations 
of society that the materi ils are gathered to rear a super- 
structure of massive grandeur and enduring strength. The 
God of nature has scattered broad-cast over all our land, on 
our mountain heights, in our secluded valleys, and in many 
H forest home, the choicest elements of genius; invaluable 
mines of intellectual wealth, the noblest treasures of a State. 
Shall these be all neglected? Shall these sons of the State, 
these children of the soil, be confined forever to the merest 
elements of knowledge necessary in the lowest schools? Will 
you arouse the slumbering intellect to action, ex ite the ap- 
petite for knowledge, open wide before the aspiring youth 
the whole broad domain of science, only to mock and tan- 
talize him with the view, and then return him to his distant 
home to pine in indolent despondence, or madly curse his 
fate? Will you thus convert your proffered boon into a pe- 
culiar curse ? Lead him yourself to the tree of knowledge, 
encourage him to pluck its golden fruit and taste their sweet- 
ness, only that you may perpetuate the curse primeval; that 
his eyes may be opened to behold his own ignorance and 
wretchedness, and find that this earthly paradise is closed 
against him, and all its fruit forbidden? 



13 

For almost twenty years this question, in various forms, hash 
been propounded to the people of Kentucky ; earnestly dis- 
cussed, profoundly pondered; and the answer has been repeat- 
edly and distinctly given, by the voice of immense majorities^ 
of her citizens, and finally by the action of her legislative- 
assembly, at their last annnal session. This act requires the 
re-organization of her ancient University, and the establish- 
ment in connection with it of a Normal School ; thus offer- 
ing to her sons, by their felicitous combination, the advan- 
tages of both; and affording to each pupil, according to the 
grade of his acquirements, at once the largest opportunity 
and the most powerful incentive to the highest culture of 
which he might be susceptible. Perhaps a happier concep- 
tion never entered the mind of man than that of such an in- 
stitution, where both these elements should be harmoniouslj 
blended, including the whole circle of education, from its 
highest to its lowest departments, under one general super- 
vision, pervaded by one spirit, directed by one commoa 
method, and tending to one grand result. Such is the sys- 
tem we are called to inaugurate to-day, containing all the el- 
mentsof the highest moral grandeur; suggested by the exi- 
gencies of education in ouj' country ; adapted to its conditioa 
and its wants; and, if wisely organized, faithfully executed, 
and vigorously sustained, replete with incalculable blessings 
to our land. 

I behold around me to-day the former representatives of 
this venerable University, and the chief officers of the State^ 
organized by law into one corporation, and co-operating, un- 
der that supreme authority, towards one common end. It 
was never the design of either to merge the University in »- 
Normal School, even of the highest order, after any North- 
ern or German pattern. For this would have been to forfeit, 
at once, all the "peculiar advantages, in its grounds, build- 
ings, endowments, libraries, and various properties," distinofc- 
ly enumerated, in the preamble to the bill, as the very mo- 



14 

tives for establishing a "school for teachers," in connection 
with the University; and must necessarily have prevented 
"^Ae suGCcessful execution of a plan," (I use the very words 
of the law) *for combining every advantage of a JSormal 
School with those which can he derived from general university 
instruction^ To act on the supposition that the two are in- 
congruous and irreconcilable, would be to stultify the legis- 
lature which ordained their union, to thwart the distinctly 
•avowed purpose of the whole organization, to disappoint the 
just expectations of the mass of the people, and the high 
iiopes of the most enlightened friends of the enterprize. 
Having assumed, at your request, the rather perilous respon- 
sibility of suggesting a plan of organization, in the interest 
-of this pervading conception, I stand here to-day to exhibit, 
.more distinctly and fully than could be done in a former 
brief and hurried interview, the nature of the institution 
proposed to be organized, the mutual relation of its several 
parts, the reciprocal advantages derived to each from their 
^combination ; to show how they may be and are, not mere- 
ly combined, but actually interpenetrate each other; each 
benefitted by their common union ; the Normal School en- 
joying the superior instruction of the University, and the 
University adopting, in all its departments, the stricter 
methods, and more accurate acquirements of the Normal 
School, and thus securing a profounder and more thorough 
scholarship than could be otherwise attained. 

And to commence with that which is, naturally and legit- 
imately, an object of interest to the masses of our people 
who are to pay the taxes and receive the benefit, let us view 
it, in its bare pecuniary aspects, as a compact between the 
State and the old University; as the most economical aiTange- 
ment ever offered to a State, by a portion of its citizens, for 
the attainment of advantages absolutely unparalleled in any 
other similar institution in the nation. Viewed in this as- 
pect, the University has contributed to the education of the 



15 

children of the State, her grounds, her spacious, costly and 
commodious buildings, her libraries, apparatus, and othet 
properties, valued, on the most moderate estimation, at $100,- 
000 ; the interest of which, at the lowest rates, is |6,00Q. 
She adds an actual income, from various sources, of $3,600, 
soon to be increased to $3,850. All the tuition fees, (of 
which the State p lys none,) must be added to this sum, 
which, estimated at the low rate of $1,000, annually, swells 
the whole amount of interest on capital invested, and actual 
income to $10,850. To these we are enabled to add other 
advantages not directly specified in the terms of the act, 
nor distinctly contemplated, even by the intelligent friends 
of the enterprise, yet of immense importance in connection 
with other parts of the scheme; the use of the spacious build- 
ings, the costly chemical apparatus, the mineralogical cabinet, 
and the really superb anatomical preparations belonging to 
the medical department of the University, all voluntari- 
ly offered, and now actually employed for the more complete 
instruction of the Normal students. Should we estimate 
this contribution alone, at the annual sum of $1,200, the 
interest upon $20,000 it would scarcely equal one half of the 
real amount. 

It will be perceived, then, that in this common enterprizej 
the old University has contributed more than two thirds 
of all the funds devoted to the education of our youth; 
thus offering advantages which it would have cost the State 
$200,000 to secure. Of the $12,000 voted by the State, 
$7,000 are very wisely appropriated to the partial support 
of meritorious young men preparing for the service of their 
country, and only five thousand remain to aid in paying the 
direct cost of their instruction. 

But if, as we have seen, the University contributes two 
thirds of all the funds, let us see what is the distribution of 
instructors? Here too we shall find that the advantage lies 
wholly with the Normal School; and that, having contribu- 



16 

ted more than two thirds of all the funds, the University 
concedes to the Normal School more than two thirds ot the 
advantages of instruction. In the proposed "Re-organiza- 
tion,"' the whole institution, according to the wise provision 
of the statute, is divided into several schools; in ^^someo7ieof 
which,'"' says the law, "shall be embraced all branches of 
learning usually taught in the district schools, together with 
the theory and practice of teaching.'" In accordance with 
this general conception, it was proposed, and the plan adopt- 
ed by the board, to constitute FIVE DISTINCT SCHOOLS, 
embracing the whole range of general education. 1st. The 
SCHOOL OF MORAL SCIENCE, including all the branch- 
es usually embraced in that department, intellectual, moral, 
and social. 2nd. Physical Science, with a like extent of 
meaning, including chemistry, natural philosophy, astrono- 
my, and other cognate sciences. 3d. THE SCHOOL OF 
MATHEMATICS, which sufficiently defines itself. 4th. The 
school of Ancient Languages, including the Greek and Latin 
languages, and litemture. And 6th. The school for Teach- 
ing, including, as above suggested, the theory and practice, 
the science, and the art of teaching. 

In each of the first' four departments, covering a vast do- 
main of varied knowledge, and demanding, each, much and 
continued thought and labor, we have employed a single 
Professor only. To that of teaching we have assigned two, 
each of tried and known ability, who devote their whole 
time, EXCLUSIVELY, to that department. Nor is this the on- 
ly provision for their improvement. The. Professors of Mor- 
al and of Physical Science in the University, are rtally and 
in all respects as truly Professors in that department as in 
the junior and senior classes. A special course of instruc- 
tion is prepared by each of these professors, adapted to the 
peculiar state of preparation of the Normal pupils and their 
especial wants, and classes are organized wholly for their ben- 
efit. Thus, four out of six Professors are specifically de' 



17 

voted to their instruction, and tivo exclusively, while every oth- 
er department of the institution is open gratuitously for their 
improvement, to the whole extent of their ability and prep- 
aration, to appreciate and profit by the advantages which 
these departments severally offer. 

I am glad to inform you, after a fair experiment of several 
months, that all the anticipations formerly expressed, of the 
benefit to be derived from this arrangement, are completely 
realized, and that several of these sons of the State, be- 
sides their Normal studies, are already taking a high posi- 
tion in some of the higher studies of the University, thus 
reflecting honor upon the counties which they represent, and 
illustrating the wisdom of that beneficent policy which 
places the poor man and the rich, the childreu of the moun- 
tain, the forest, and the plain, side by side, in the same halls 
of science, with a fair field and an open track, in their gener- 
ous competition for the noblest prizes which society can offer. 

THIS IS MAN'S TRUE EQUALITY; not the equal- 
ity of brute strength, and mere power to vote; but 
equality of intellect and knowledge; equality of access 
to those vast stores of thought which the experience 
and the enquiries of centuries have accumulated — the rich- 
est legacy by far which the past has bequeathed to the pres- 
ent, and the present is bound to transmit, not only unimpair- 
ed but increased, to the coming future. "Spelling, geogra- 
phy, a little English grammar, arithmetic to vulgar or deci- 
mal fractions!" Is this the rich and varied intellectual re- 
past to which a proud State, after years of preparation, in- 
vites her noblest sons? The hucksters of Constantinople 
are accustomed, daily, to perambulate the streets of that con- 
secrated city and proclaim aloud, with devout and sonorous 
cadence, to all the faithful, "Figs! figs! In the name of the 
prophet! figs!" A most impotent conclusion, surely, to an 
invocation so solemn and sublime. What shall we say, then, 
to that political huckster who, with stentorian voice, pro- 
2 



18 

claims to all our people — "Ho ! ye men of the mountains, 
ye men of the valleys, ye men of the bi1)ad, green, fertile plains, 
ye sons of revolutionary sires, ye guardians of a nation's lib- 
erties, ye depositories of a world's best hopes — in the name 
and by the authority of the great State of Kentucky, and of 
her highest wisdom, in the city of Frankfort assembled, we of- 
fer, for your acceptance and your gratitude, a little geography, 
a little grammar, and arithmetic to the rule of three or vulgar 
fractions, to be doled out by strolling pedagogues, in ho- 
moeopathic doses for the health of the body politic !" A 
smile may play upon the lip in view of absurdity like this, 
but does not the blush mantle on the cheek, and indignation 
burn upon the brow, while the oily demagogue is seen smil- 
ing in his sleeve, as he slily whispers — "Well, it is good 
enough for them. They will have it so. My son shall en- 
joy a finished education at some foreign institution, well en- 
dowed by private munificence or the wise policy of States, 
wiser than our own. But, these awkward sons of the rude 
mechanic, the laborious tiller of the soil, the hardy moun- 
taineer: it would be idle to expect that such as they should 
either understand or appreciate, should desire or improve the 
large advantages you ptoffer." 

Thus sneers the mountebank and demagogue, in his igno- 
rance of man and of the God who made him ; ignorance of 
the noble elements that lie slumbering in the bosoms of the 
neglected millions ; ignorance of the high destiny assigned 
them in the future history of the world, by the wise designs 
of the great Father of all human spirits. Now, in the name of 
God and man we hurl back the slander of the demagogue, and 
tell him this is the very thing which we expect to do ; the very 
thing which can be done, which we are doing now; which, by 
God's blessing, and the permission of the people, we shall 
accomplish so rapidly and so successfully that within ten 
years one thousand of these trained teachers shall be active- 
ly engaged over all the State; and in every county there 



19 

shall soon arise a champion to vindicate himself and his 
companions from this foul aspersion, and prove to all the 
world, that from the humblest home of the lowliest freeman 
there may issue men of power, nature's true nobility, God's 
own chosen aristocracy of worth and genius, who will meet 
on every elevated field of thought and action these lordly 
sons of pride, with truer hearts and brawnier intellect and 
equal weapons, and in every conflict bear off the victory. 

We have already shown that were this considered simply 
as a bargain between the State and the University, instead 
of a large and wise provision for the education of her sons, 
still, upon the lowest principles of the most exacting traffic, 
the University advances more than two-thirds of all the cap- 
ital, and the State, in the persons of her pupils, receives 
more than two-thirds of all the profits ; for five thousand dol- 
lars annually she receives the use of twelve thousand dollars 
more, and other and higher advantages beside, which no out- 
lay of money, at any other place, could possibly secure. To 
the consideration of these advantages let us now proceed. 

Let it be remembered, then, that you have resolved, (the 
people of Kentucky,) on mature deliberation, after long and 
full discussion, in the face of many obstacles, and by over- 
whelming majorities, again and again repeated, to educate the 
youth of the country. Wearied and digusted with the mul- 
titude of incompetent, and often abandoned men, pouring in 
upon us from adjacent States, hostile to our institutions and 
dangerous to our safety, you have resolved, irrevocably, not to 
entrust to such as these that most solemn and most sacred of 
all mere earthly functions, the education of your children, but 
to rear up, upon your own soil, a multitude of enlightened 
men, to whom a trust so exalted and so sacred may safely be 
confided. Each onward step in the progress of this great 
enterprise has deepened your conviction of its necessity, and 
enlarged your conception of its scope and grandeur. 



20 

You propose to elevate teaching to the level of the other 
professions, and place the Teacher side by side with men of 
intellect and education in the other departments of human 
life. You demand a wider, bolder, more thorough and 
philosophic instruction, such as befits the dignity of a great 
people, and can mould to freedom, to virtue and true glory, 
the minds of coming generations. Great thoughts like this 
do not die. The heart of a whole people, once fired with 
BUch a conception, does not readily renounce it. Such 
thoughts are imperishable, and sooner or later embody 
themselves in real life, and become historic. We are en- 
acting HISTORY even NOW, and distant ages shall read the 
record of glory or of shame, and bless or blush as we rise 
to the level of our manifest destiny, or sink beneath it. 

To realize such a conception, teaching must become a sci- 
ence — the consummation and the climax of all the sciences 
— ^the highest philosophy — ^in fine, in living and practical op- 
ration, comprehending all the sciences in their mutual rela- 
tions to each other and to the mind of man. Hence, in the 
highest Normal Colleges of Europe, the ordinary education 
in all the branches of primary instruction is presupposed, 
and the wider view, the loftier conception, the simpler, clear- 
er, more comprehensive, and, therefore, more philosophical 
presentation is the object aimed at. "The Prussian teacher" 
— says Mr. Kay, a distinguished graduate of Cambridge 
University, England — "when he enters the Normal College, 
has genemlly, before that period, enjoyed a much better ed- 
ucation than the English teacher, when he undertakes the 
management of a school. WIwi he leaves the Normal Col- 
lege he has had a better education than nine out of ten men 
who leave our Universities." 

Again, viewed as a science, it is based on the philosophy 
of the human mind; as an art, it is the practical application 
of the laws of mind to the development of man's intellectu- 
al and moral powers. In either aspect, whether as a science 



21 

or an art, mind is the object upon which we operate, mind 
is the instrument employed, and mind the operating agent. 
Hence, in every Norman School throughout the world, the 
philosophy of mind — not in its broadest range or its minut- 
est details, yet in its simpler and more essential elements — 
has ever been considered indispensable ; not the barren dis- 
putations of the ancient schools, nor the transcendental and 
misty metaphysics of a later day, but the inductive study of 
the great facts of our intellectual and moral being — our spir- 
itual and immortal nature; "that practical science," to use the 
language of one of its greatest masters, "which relates to 
the duties, and the hopes, and the great destiny of man." 
I shall not now pause to vindicate the importance and utility 
of this study. The question itself would bear us amidst the 
very depths of the science. Its most powerful assailants 
have drawn their weapons from the armory it furnished, and 
in reasoning against metaphysics have reasoned metaphysi- 
cally. It reminds one of those ingenious assaults against 
classical literature, which derive their chief attractions from 
the graces of a style most studiously classic; and are adorn- 
ed with all the beauty and splendor of classic imagery and 
classical allusion. 

It were apart from my present purpose to embark in this 
discussion, and to answer objections which really appear to 
me to bear along with them their own refutation — to be, in- 
deed, absolutely suicidal. But it is infinitely to my pur- 
pose to remark, that right or wrong, it is, at any rate, a fact 
— an indisputable and unchangeable fact — which it is equal 
folly to deny or to ignore; a fact which meets us in all hu- 
man history; which turns up, perpetually, with each new 
phase of thought in the universal mind; an omnipresent 
fact, which surrounds us on every side in human society, 
even in our day ; there is, there always has been, there al- 
ways will be, there always must be, in every age, in every 
nation, in every reflecting mind of man, a philosophy — true 



22 

or false — superficial or profound. And this philosophy, af- 
ter all, IS, AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE, THE MIGHTIEST POWER ON 

EARTH. With your permission or without it will pervade all 
politics, all morals, all religion, all domestic life, touching all 
human relations, involving all human interests, questioning 
all human duties, powers, and rights; over-canopying the 
whole of human existence with its broad expanse of light, or 
its firmament of darkness, and sending its healthful or its 
baleful infl.aence through every vein and artery of the body 
politic, and social. It signifies nothing to sneer and say — 
"It is all aerial and impalpable speculation, which is born 
amidst the clouds." It is born amidst the clouds, is it? 
Then is it born where the lightning is cradled — where the 
thunderbolt is forged — where the tempest and the whirlwind 
have their home; and, like them too, it descends at the ap- 
pointed time, from its cloudy and aerial height, to sweep the 
earth in its fury — to shatter all it meets in its pathway of 
fire, and overwhelm, in its desolating career, all that dares re- 
sist its progress. Like that mysterious and impalpable elec- 
tric power too, which is gathered in the clouds, and silently 
and insensibly perva"des our atmosphere, yet ever blackens 
above the first heavings of the volcano, and portends the 
first shock of the earthquake, so these aerial speculations 
have ever had intimate access to all the fiery elements, deep- 
Beated in the soul of man ; and in those earthquake throes of 
revolution, which have heaved up the deep foundations of 
society, shaken empires to their centre, burst all the bonds 
©f social and moral obligation, and buried all law, all order, 
all freedom, beneath the universal ruin; it will be found, in 
every case, without exception, that a false philosophy was 
the demon of the storm, and rears its gigantic form, in bloody 
and hideous triumph, above the desolation it has made. The 
sensational and infidel philosphy of France, the Gospel ac- 
cording to Voltaire and Rousseau, itself a spasmodic reac- 
^tion against a philosophy not greatly better, was indisputa- 



23 

bly the parent of the first French revolution. Nay, that 
revolution itself, with all its bloody horrors, was but this false 
philosophy embodied, clothed with living flesh and blood, 
and armed with power to walk abroad over the earth, which 
it cursed, and blasted, and terrified, by its presence. It is 
the same philosophy, slightly modified, driven now, indeed, 
from the domain of all higher thought, but skulking, still, 
amidst the desperate hordes that throng the dark alleys and 
the hells of Paris, which even in our day hurled back young 
freedom, with impetuous recoil and spontaneous horror, into 
the arms of despotism, and forced a brave and manly race to 
bow their necks, in abject submission, beneath the iron heel 
of their imperial tyrant. Nor let it be supposed that there 
is not a kind of wild, half-reasoning sincerity amongst these 
madmen; there is a "method in their madness," and Red Re- 
publicanism, in its deepest hues of scarlet, is but the living 
embodiment of their abstract theories of God, of nature, and 
of man; of his origin, his character, his relations, his duties, 
and his final destiny. If God be a fiction, if the universe 
be but a vast machinery, moved on by the blind impulse of 
unconscious laws, and man a mere material organization, to 
perish with the dissolution of the particles that constitute his 
frame; if marriage be a cruel bondage, and property a foul 
injustice, and moral obligation a refined self-interest, and self- 
ish indulgence the chief good and highest destiny of man — 
tell me whether the sweep of the tornado, or the earthquake's 
shock, or the force and the fury of all the natural elements 
combined, would be half so terrific as these dead abstractions 
now vitalized and throbbing in ten thousand bosoms, and let 
loose with all their attendant passions, in their mad career of 
blood and lust, over the fair face of human society ? 

One is almost ashamed to repeat what is so familiar to ev- 
ery thoughtful mind, that this is no new phenomenon. It is 
the same old farce of human folly — the same mad, wild 
tragedy of human crime and woe — which have been re-en- 



24 

acted again and again, on the stage of the world's history; 
the same sensual and atheistic philosophy, whether held by 
Roman Epicurean or Jewish Sadducee; the same voluptuous 
self-indulgence, and the same terrible and fatal instinct for 
blood which marked the last decline of Roman greatness and 
virtue, and extinguished the light of Judah's glory in the best 
blood of her own children. 

And what is it that we behold around us, even now? Let 
no man fear lest I should over-step the limits appropriate to 
this occasion, or seek to foment, by a single word, those angry 
passions which have too long alienated brethren bound to- 
gether by so many ties, so solemn and so sacred — by a com- 
mon faith and a common ancestry — by a common language, 
a common interest, and common laws — by the same rich in- 
heritance of national greatness, descending from our immor- 
talized forefathers; embarked in the same august experiment 
of freedom and self-government, and bound over, by a mani- 
fest and inevitable destiny, to the same bright career of pros- 
perity and glory, or to one common ruin, as ignominious as it 
will assuredly be final, terrible, irretrievable. Yet I do most 
solemnly believe, that prolonged and terrible struggle, which^ 
increasing every year in violence, has convulsed this great 
nation from its centre to the remotest extremity, originated 
in a false and erroneous philosophy ; from theories of human 
rights, and their correspondent duties, which are radically rev- 
olutionary and destructive, antisocial and anti-christian. — 
These theories, at first incautiously and honestly adopted — 
{honestly, I say, for it is mere folly to suspect gratuitous ma- 
lignity, or mingle the ferocity of passion with the discussion 
of great principles, which involve the interests of a whole na- 
tion, and the welfare of posterity) — these principles, thus in- 
cautiously adopted — taught in the class and the text-book, 
inculcated from the pulpit and the press, sown broad-cast over • 
all the land — have sprung up, at length, to the terror of their 
bewildered advocates, as armed men upon our soil, with 



25 

drawn daggers, and each dagger aimed at the bosom of their 
country — at the very heart of this glorious Union — the last 
hope of the christian and the freeman throughout the world ; 
the destined theatre for that vast experiment, on whose suc- 
cessful issue is suspended (under God,) the whole fu- 
ture destiny of the nation and the race. Unless the disas- 
trous progress of these false principles be soon arrested 
what we have already seen will be scarcely the '''^heginning of 
the endy It will be, not a nation on the verge of civil war, but 
society itself upon the brink of dissolution. Without such 
healthy and vigorous reaction in the universal mind — the 
combined result of all the conservative influences throughout 
the nation — I do believe that some of us now present will 
live to behold a REVOLUTION — not merely in the structure 
of our government, and the mutual relations of these States, 
but a revolution in human society itself, reaching all mor- 
als, all religion, all human relations — social and domestic — 
all duties, all rights, all authority of God and man; a univer- 
sal French revolution, in fine, on American soil, when every 
household hearth shall be polluted, and every domestic sanc- 
tity defiled, and each holiest man shall be called to seal a 
martyr's testimony with a martyr's blood, and in the sacred 
names of liberty, equality, fraternity, the groaning earth shall 
be baptized anew in blood. 

Let none suppose this picture overcharged. In less than 
half a century a population of one hundred millions will 
overspread this, our vast domain, sweeping from the Atlantic 
slope, over the broad valley of the Mississippi, through the 
dark forests and deep gorges of the Rocky Mountains, dot- 
ting each plain and hill-side and valley with rural homes and 
smiling villages, till the hum of the multitudinous popula- 
tion shall mingle with the murmur of the ocean waves as 
they roll, in their mysterious grandeur, against the distant 
shores of the great Pacific. A nation, such as the world 
never saw before — with wealth and physical resources — an in- 



26 

telligence and freedom — a restless enterprize — an irrepressi- 
ble energy — a reckless and audacious courage — unparalelled 
in the history of man — where all the races of the earth shall 
meet and mingle, and all the elements of good and evil, from 
every quarter of the globe, shall stand face to face and strug- 
gle for the mastery. Now, suppose in such a nation, with 
every energy thus stimulated to intensest action, and every 
nerve of thought and feeling wakened to keenest sensibili- 
ty — there should be thrown broad-cast over the whole mass 
of this excited and fiery population, these wild theories of 
human rights — each man claiming for himself prerogatives 
and powers, as inherent in his nature — back of our constitu- 
tion and laws, and superior to them — appealing to a higher 
law — an ulterior jurisdiction — each visionary theory embody- 
ing itself into living form, and leaping forth into action — 
each unfettered passion walking abroad in the wantonness of 
illimitable license — each ancient landmark effaced — each bar- 
rier, reared by the wisdom of our fathers, swept away! 
Amidst the outburst of these frantic passions — the sweep, 
and the surge, and the fiery collision of all these angry ele- 
ments of these accumulated millions, cut loose from all the 
restraints of ancient reverence for law and constitution, for 
morals and religion, what human imagination could portray 
the horrors of the universal carnage — the convulsive agonies 
of society in the crisis of its dissolution? History hath re- 
corded several such catastrophes, but never on so immense a 
scale, on a theatre so vast, with forces so prodigious, and ele- 
ments of mutual destruction so concentrated and terrific. It 
is the bloody epitaph upon the tomb of buried freedom, in 
ancient and in modern times. The culminating point is mil- 
itary despotism. The strong arm and the iron will, to curb 

THE PAgSIONS THAT WOULD BEAR NO OTHER RULE the loVOr of 

the people become their Lord — the demagogue turned ty- 
rant. 



27 

The interests here involved rise, infinitely, above all con- 
siderations of section, or of party — appeal to us as fathers, 
as husbands, as citizens, as men; belong to the whole nation 
and the race. It is not the North or the South — the East or 
the West: It is our hearths and our firesides— our altars and 
our homes — our property and our lives, — not here or there^ 
hit EVERY WHERE, and ALL ALIKE, imperilled. For let it be re- 
membered, and deliberately pondered, that every element of 
evil, now arrayed in the crusade against our property and 
lives, is of equally explosive and destructive power against 
themselves. That Higher Law, to which they now appeal, 
as superseding all human legislation, cannot be found in the 
word of God. They must seek it, higher; in the perverted 
reason, the diseased conscience, or the mad passions of men. 
Amidst the wild uproar of these tumultuous and insurgent 
passions, all human laws, all written constitutions, will be as 
paper bulwarks before the sweep of a hurricane. 

Is the relation of master and slave, in itself criminal, be- 
cause there are evils which attend it, inseparable from the con- 
dition of our fallen nature? The same is true of every oth- 
er relation beneath the sun. Must it be abolished, immedi- 
ately at all hazards, and in defiance of all consequences^ So 
must they. The array of labor against capital, of the many 
against the few; the cry of aristocracy against those who are 
enjoying, with their children, the hard earned products of 
their frugal toil, or of the prowess of their fathers, who, more 
than sixty years ago, braved the hardships of the wilderness, 
and all the perils of a savage foe, are, surely, of equal force 
against the Prince Merchants and Lordly Manufacturers of 

the North. 

That mad equality of which they speak, is really an equal- 
ity, in all things and for all men— of every country, as well 
as every color — in property, as tvell as potver ; an equality of 
idleness and industry, of vice and virtue — of the reckless 
spendthrift and the industrious frugal man of business; an 



2S 

equality at war with the everlasting laws of God, and nature; 
which can never be raalized, except amidst the total subver- 
sion of human society; when industry would cease to labor, 
because she could not enjoy the fruits of her toil; and rapine 
would cease to plunder, only because, amidst the universal 
desolation, there was nothing left to rich or poor— nothing for 
violence to seize, or cupidity and lust to crave. 

It is astonishing, beyond expression, that wise and thought- 
ful men should not appreciate the power, for good or evil, of 
those ulterior principles, which, once really received by the 
soul of man, are incorporated with all the elements of his be- 
ing, mould, whether true or false, with omnipotent control, the 
whole inward character and outward constitution of society ; 
and in the name of reason, and of conscience, muster the 
mightiest passions, alike the loftiest and the basest, beneath 
their b mner. He is not fit to live and act in this broad, prac- 
tical, waking world — can neither comprehend the past, nor 
interpret the present, nor forecast the future — who does not 
know the Omnipotent power of these abstract principles. 

The moon, from her home in the distant skies, sheds a calm 
and gentle radiance upon the world below — unseen, as un- 
heard, amidst the blackness of the tempest, and the war of 
the elements — yet, beneath her silent influence the ocean is 
moved to its profoundest depths with its whole world of wa- 
ters. So this harmless theory of some retired thinker — ut- 
tered in the class-room, printed in the text-book, circulated 
in the quarterly review, passes into the monthly, is echoed 
by the daily and weekly journal — is read in the family, is 
assumed as an intuitive first principle — is incorporated into 
the very language of daily life, mingles with the whole at- 
mosphere of human thought, takes its place, at last, amidst 
all the loftiest sentiments and deepest convictions of o«r na- 
ture. Need we wonder that he who has indolently derided 
it as an abstraction should wake up, some morning, to find' 



29 

that it has subverted dynasties and convulsed empires, and 
scattered constitutions to the winds? 

Now, I do believe, in regard to the great majority of the 
text books; recently printed and widely circulated, for the 
use of High Schools, Normal Schools, and Colleges — First: 
That even, on points not directly connected with any vital in- 
terest of society, they are superficial, and defective to the 
last extreme, and can give no vigorous life or healthy stim- 
ulus to any soul of man. Second: That on several points 
in philosophy and morals, of human rights especially, and hu- 
man duties, they are radically, totally, vitally erroneous, and 
destructive, anti-social, and anti-christian. It were the most 
puerile folly to suppose that religious zeal is the source of 
these erroneous principles, or the impelling motive to that 
reckless agitation which they have engendered. On the con- 
trary, the Bible is the great bulwark of society against their 
progress. Given by infinite wisdom, founded in a perfect 
knowledge of human nature, adapted to human society, in 
all its varieties of possible condition, the Bible is essentially 
conservative — constructive, and not destructive. It seeks to 
remedy social evils, not by sudden and violent convulsion, 
but by gradual and progressive amelioration ; not by warring 
against the existing relations and institutions of society, but 
by pervading society, from its summit to its base, throughout 
all its departments, and in all its relatipns, with its own trans- 
forming spirit of purity, and justice and love, and thus puri- 
fying, elevating, and renovating all. It recognizes indeed, 
and deeply deplores, the outward disorder, but, with pene- 
trating glance, discerns the inward source; and spurning all 
the quackery of external and superficial applications, strikes 
directly at the seat of the disease, at the great central, univer- 
sal malady within. Christianity is the direct antagonist — in 
all its principles and in all its methods — of the "Rose Water" 
philanthrophy of modern times; and will be found, at last, 
the mightiest conservative element in our modern civilization. 



30 

And this is distinctly recognized by those who, with logica 
severity or with impetuous zeal, have followed out their prin- 
ciples, to their most extreme, and, as I suppose, their legiti- 
mate application. With one consent, they renounce the Bi- 
ble, and level their bitterest denunciation against the great 
body of orthodox and evangelical clergymen. Louder, eveUy 
than the cry for the dissolution of the American Union, is that 
for the total annihilation of the American church. The two 
acknowledged leaders of the extreme movement, are open 
apostates fi-om the christian faith; and of those popular agi- 
tators, whose fiery denunciations are unwisely published and 
republished, as indications of religious sentiment, at the North, 
there is scarcely one who does not pour the bitterness of his 
derison and his scorn upon ail the great fundamental princi- 
ples of our common, evangelical Christianity, and openly 
avow his sympathy, and his affiliation, with the enemies of 
our holy faith. Thus have those abstract principles, so sim- 
ple, and apparently so harmless in their origin, once embodied, 
and leaping forth into action, become the most portentous 
and appalling of all realities, threatening our very existence 
as a nation, and assailing the very foundations of our faith. 
Now, what is the re'medy? Manifestly, a return to the 
teachings of the Bible, and of a true philosophy in harmony 
with its principles, and with those profounder views which it 
everywhere inculcates, concerning the origin and the remedy 
of all individual and social evil. It is my deliberate convic- 
tion that this whole department of thought needs a thorough 
revision, in the interest of such a sound and conservative 
philosophy ; and that neither the nation nor the world will ever 
find repose until the great principles of man's duties and his 
rights are settled on a surer and safer basis. To accomplish 
this work, at least in part, and to the full measure of my 
poor abilities— for the University and for the Normal School- 
and thus prepare the way, (if nothing more,) for some more 



31 

successful laborer, I shall consider one of the peculiar duties 
of my office. 

If, as has been repeatedly asserted, some former efforts to 
connect the Normal School with the College or the Universi- 
ty have proved unsuccessful, this has been due either to some 
error in the plan, or some defect in the execution. The Nor- 
mal School has been attached to the College — not incorpora- 
ted with it The ligaments which bound them together were 
not vital connections; the same instructors did not partici- 
pate in each, nor the blood of a common life circulate through 
both. As the result of our experiment, thus far, I am able, 
confidently, to assure you that there is no incongruity in the 
elements which we have here combined in a single institution; 
that no educational machinery ever worked more smoothly — 
none, within my observation, with so little friction — and that 
on the very subject which has just occupied our attention — 
apparently the most unmanageable of all, I have not experi- 
enced the slightest difficulty, but in a class of almost fifty 
pupils, unused to abstruse discussions, have ordinaily wit- 
nessed as much of interest, and close attention, as in the audi- 
ence which I am called to address to-day. 

The undesigned and unexpected .length of the remarks al- 
ready oiTered, forbids that I should detain you by a similar 
detail in regard to the other department, whose importance is 
more easily appreciated, and therefore more generally ac- 
knowledged—that of PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

A large and expensive apparatus, already prepared and of- 
fered gratuitously for your servic©^; an experienced and skill- 
ful teacher, already familiar with the outlines and details of 
the science; these surely are advantages rarehj^ very rarely, 
enjoyed in the commencement of such an enterprise. That 
these advantages are duly estimated is manifest from the num- 
ber and general character of our Normal students — our num- 
ber being nearly equal to that of all the male pupils in the 
two celebrated schools at Albany and Trenton; and the most 



32 

intelligent amongst them — those who will be most immediate- 
ly and widely felt in their several communities, being avow- 
edly selected, and having accepted their appointments, in di- 
rect reference to those peculiarities of our institution, which 
distinguish it from others. 

I cannot close these remarks without calling your atten- 
tion to another aspect of this institution, of immense im- 
portance to the general interests of the State. These young 
men are the children of the State, gathered with absolute im- 
partiality from every county, the representatives of every 
interest, members of every political party, and of every re- 
ligious denomination — Protestant and Catholic — united for 
one object — the individual improvement of each, for himself— 
and of all, for our common country. They do not remain 
with us, but return to their distant homes, bearing the pre- 
cious treasures they have here acquired. It is the peculiar 
glory of this beneficent arrangement, that it is so magnanimous- 
ly unselfish This single city supplies more than two-thirds 
of all the funds — the State receives the benefit The wealthier 
counties pay the tax — the poorer enjoy the advantages. Even 
in the richer counties the poor man receives the benefit — the 
rich bear the burden, with no other remuneration than that 
which flows from the delighted contemplation of the coun- 
try's advancing prosperity and glory. 

They return to the region from which they came, not 
merely to communicate the scanty knowledge, necessary in 
the lowest schools, but to give a new impulse to the univer- 
sal mind, progressively to elevate the standard of knowledge 
and intelligence — to awake -the dormant intellect throughout 
the State, and develope those latent energies, slumbering in 
so many noble bosoms, and never brought into the service of 
their country for want of those advantages, and that cultiva- 
tion, enjoyed by their wealthier and more fortunate fellow-citi- 
zens. How many sons of genius, who, under favourable cir- 
cumstances, might and would become a pride and blessing to 



33 

their native land, even now, are pining in obscurity — strug- 
gling against insuperable difficulties — overwhelmed by pov- 
erty — against whom the door of knowledge and of hope is 
absolutely closed? Is not that a wise policy, as well as a 
magnanimous instinct, which leads a State to seek out these 
gifted minds, throughout all her borders, to lead them from 
their obscure retreats, to utter a cheering word, to lend a help- 
ing hand, to make a liberal provision? 

Who can estimate the value of one such premium mind, 
drawn forth from his obscurity, by a generous kindness, which 
confers an honor, not a charity; a distinction, not a degra- 
dation. The value to a State of one such mind, tianscends 
all calculation. How great the benefit conferred upon man- 
kind, when Sir Humphrey Davy discovered (the greatest of 
all his discoveries,) the poor apothecary's boy, and made to 
the world the present of a Faraday ? And, in that boy, of 
whom you all have heard, from the Slashes of Hanover, 
whom the sagacity of Wythe led gently on, and encouraged 
kindly in his arduous path to greatness, what human eye 
could have then discerned the future orator, and patriot states- 
man, on whom, in every time of peril, a nation's eyes should 
be directed, and a nation's hopes repose — who twice, in the 
very crisis of her destiny, when the boldest quailed, reared 
his own stately form, erect, serene, amidst the fury of the 
tempest; and by the majesty of his commanding intellect^ 
and the power of his subduing eloquence, awed down the 
voice of faction — and even in the decline of life, and amidst 
the infirmities of disease — hero to the last, and born leader 
amongst men — returned to the scenes of his early triumphSj 
to rally, by his trumpet tones, the patriotism of the land, be- 
neath his banner, and save once more the constitution, and 
the union; then died as he had lived; his natural force, in- 
deed, abated, but the imperial intell ct undimmed; in life 
and in death, the world's great commoner? These, and such 
as these — the Franklins, the Shermans, the Henrys, the 
3 



34 

Clays, are but the rich masses of virgin gold appearing here 
and there, at intervals, upon the surface of the earth, which in- 
dicate the richer treasures that lie concealed within its bosora. 
They tell of inexhiastible mines that lie beneath ; where the 
primeval veins of pure and solid metal, run deep into the 
mountain side, imbedded in the everlasting quartz, which the 
skill of the scientific miner only can bring forth for the use 
of man. Without science, you may gather a few grains of 
shining dust — a few ounces perhaps of precious metal — 
washed down by the mountain torrent, or heaved up by the 
fires within, and scattered, few and far apart, amidst the rude 
magnificence of nature. With its aid, you change the whole 
course of the world's commerce, and guide the march of Em- 
;pire. 

Need I say, that the mines of California, Mexico, and Aus- 
traliasin, all combined, are not so rich in all the elements of 
individual and national prosperity, as those which lie within 
the throbbing bosoms of our young countrymen, invisible as 
yet, but only waiting for the skill and science of the intel- 
lectual miner, to reveal their boundless opulence. How great 
the privilege — how imperative the duty — how bright the 
glory of labouring in such an enterprise ! An enterprise for 
a whole people, and for all time! In behalf of such a cause, 
even defeat were glorious; against it, success would only be 
PRE-EMINENCE OF INFAMY. How august the hopo of a better 
and nobler future, for our country 1 How sweet the memory 
of good and generous deeds; of toils, even, and sufferings en- 
dured, for the benefit of man! How hallowed is the good 
man's grave! How sacred the very dust of the world's great 
benefactors ! 

I have stood within the walls of that ancient and venera- 
ble abbey, where England's dead monarchs rest within their 
royal sepulchres; where all that have been most eminent for 
rank, or genius, are gathered, for their last repose. There is 
the tomb of Shakspeare, and of rare Ben Jonson; there 



35 

Pitt and Fox lie, side by side, their eloquence and rivalry- 
hushed in death; there Chatham towers in colossal grandeur, 
his arm uplifted, as, when in life, he hurled the thunderbolts 
of his imperial scorn upon his terrified antagonists. But 
from all these magnificent memorials of departed greatness, 
the eye of the traveler turns to rest upon that simple tablet, 
on a retired pillar, sacred to the memory of one — the graces 
of whose varied and brilliant conversation charmed the pol- 
ished circles of that great metropolis, while the seraph tones 
of that unearthly voice held listening crowds in wrapt and 
breathless admiration, and by the simple m;yesty of truth 
and goodness, awed England's proudest aristocracy before 
him — and as he gazes on that simple and sublime inscrip- 
tion, which, forgetting his genius and accomplishments, com- 
memorates his virtues only — he seems almost to hear the 
angel melody of that unearthly voice, and the very air seems 
vocal with the name of "William Wilberforce, friend of 
God and Man." 

And, when I have reflected on the hundreds and thousands 
that may, hereafter, issue in successive generations from these 
halls, to be the radiant sources of light and knowledge to all 
around; and the ten thousand voices that shall rise in grati- 
tude to heaven, and call down blessings on the name of him 
who made them blessed, I have felt, that there is no purer famey 
than that ivhlch springs from doing good, and that human am- 
bition, in its loftiest aspirations, could ask no prouder epitaph, 
than the simple inscription which shall record the name of 
him — "the founder of the system of general instruction, 

FOR the people OF KENTUCKY." 



37 



TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY, AND THE STATE 
NORMAL SCHOOL. 



In answer to numerous inquiries, and to remove miscon- 
ceptions in reference to the nature and organization of the 
Normal School, and its relation to the University, it has 
been thought advisable to append the following briel and dis- 
tinct statements. 

"MoBRisoN College" was, formerly, the name of the Lite- 
rary Department of an institution, to which were attached 
two professional schools — Law and Medical — all included un- 
der the general charter and title of Transylvania University. 

The buildings, grounds, endowments, and other properties 
of Morrison College, have been transferred to a Board of 
Trustees, appointed by the Legislature, and consisting of the 
Governor and other principal off cers of State, together with 
the members of the former Board, in conformity with an act 
entitled "An act to re-organize Transylvania University and 
establish a School for Teachers." The design of this act, as 
distinctly given in the preamble to the bill, is to secure "the 
successful execution of a plan combining every advantage of 
a Normal School with those which can he derived from gener- 
al University instruction.'" In accordance with the purpose 
and the requirements of this act the Institution has been re- 
organized, so as to include five distinct schools, of which the 
formal School is one. 

The relation of this School to the University is precisely 
the same, in all respects, as that of any other Department of 
the General Institution; being not merely attached to it, but 
incorporated with it, as one of its component and essential 
parts, yet retaining its own distinctive character, and having, 



38 

like other departments, its own distinct Professors, as "il 
Normal SJiooV 

The instruction in the primary, and most essential branches 
of this department, together with the classification of the 
pupils, and all the minuter details of interior organization, 
are confided to two Professors, with the advice and assistance 
of the President, while the general government and adminis- 
tration of discipline rest ultimately with the Faculty of the 
University and the Board. The course of study in this de- 
partment, adopted by the Board, will be published wiih the 
annual catalogue, at an early day. 

In addition to the two Professors exclusively devoted to this 
Department, the President, as Professor of Moral Science, 
in the University, and the Professor of Physical Science, 
give special instruction to the Normal students, adapted to 
their wants, and prepared for their exclusive benefit. Thus 
the State pupils are not merged in the general mass of the 
College classes, yet enjoy all the advantages which mny be 
derived from the acquirements and the experience of the 
Professors in the University, the superior apparatus. &c. 

It is the fixed purpose of the Faculty and the Board that 
the funds of the State shall not be perverted from their pri- 
mar;/ and specific ohjed, which is, to ibatn up teachers for 
THE COUNTRY. Therefore, the Normal School being care'iilly 
organized, with special reference to that object, each State 
pupil is considered, by the very fact of his accepting the 
appointment, a member of that School, and pledged to mas- 
ter the studies in that department; nor can any be allowed 
to neglect, much less wholly to omit, these primary studies, 
for any personal advantage, real or imaginary, to be derived 
from the higher studies of the college proper. Yet, should 
any pupil possess, {as many do,) such intimate acquaintance 
with the studies of the Normal School, or such aptness, and 
industry, that, in the judgment of the Faculty, he may profi- 
tably devote a portion of his time to the higher studies, then^ 



39 

the whole University is open for his benefit, and every facil- 
ity is afforded for his wider improvement; it beivg our dis- 
tinct purpose to insure accuraqj in the loiver hrmich.es, yet af- 
ford every opportunity and stimulus for progress in the 
higher. 

This opportunity for higher culture, so eagerly seized, and 
so well improved already by a portion of our pupils, makes 
not only an abler man, but a superior teacher; and in all the 
more gifted minds, will assuredly stimulate to larger acquire- 
ments in after life ; thus multiplying the number of thor- 
oughly educated men, and accomplishing collaterally another 
of the great purposes of the Legislature, to raise up men for 
the State, as ivell as instructors for our schools. 

Should any wish to return and complete their studies here, 
all the advantages of the University are gratuitously offer- 
ed. 

Those advantages to the Normal School, derived from its 
connection with the University are attended by correspond- 
ent advantnges to other departments of the general institu- 
tion, which are well worthy of serious Consideration, and 
render the University a place peculiarly adapted to the edu- 
cation of youth. 

First. The infusion of so large an element favorable to 
study, morality, and, good order. So many full groivn men, 
sober, discreet, studious, decorous in all their demeanor. 
This influence is powerfully felt in every department, and 
combined with other causes, has given a most healthful im- 
pulse to our enterprise in its very commencement. 

Second. The great defect in all our institutions is the want 
of accurate and thorough scholarship, and mental discipline. 
This arises, not so much from any defect, either of ability or 
fidelity, on the part of the professors, as from a difficulty 
which lies at the very foundation of our system, and is ab- 
solutely insuperable by human ingenuity or patience, viz: 
The total ivank of accurate instruction and thorough discipline 



40 

in the early stages of education. This is an absolutely urman- 
agcable evil. It meets, and thwart^, and baffles, and dis- 
heartens, at every point and in every department, the most en- 
thusiastic, energetic, and conscientious instructor. It is fast 
reducing us to be a nation of superficial sciolists and empty 
drivellers. It is a crack in the foundation which runs 
through the whole superstructure, mounts to the dome, and 
endangers all. We may plaister it over, ingeniously and 
skillfully, but the weakness remains. Wuese still, and 
WORST OF ALL, the Very attempt to hide the defect, recoils 
upon our moral nature, strikes in upon the inner man; and 

SHUWy PRETENSE BECOMES INEVITABLY MORAL TURPITUDE. NoW 

the only remedy is a reform in the lower departments of 
instruction. This can be effected by the Normal School on- 
ly; by the stricter methods, and the more accurate acquire- 
ments which it is enabled to enforce ; thence it may be ex- 
tended to the common school and the academy; and return- 
ing to the University in the person of pupils formerly train- 
ed in the Normal School, may constitute, in every class, a 
nucleus of trained, and disciplined minds around which 
others may gather, as examples of thorough and successful 
culture. The great design of education is not merely to 
communicate knowledge, but to discipline and invigorate the 
faculties; to render the mind, not passively redpient, hid re- 
productive. For this purpose, the method adopted in every 
well directed Normal School, is not merely the hest, but the 
only possible, or conceivable method- Require the instant 
reproduction; never allow the pupil to consider a subject 
mastered, until all the facts, principles, trains of reasoning, 
the whole process of investigation, can be distinctly stated 
in language satisfactory to himself, and intelligible to others. 
This habit formed in the Normal School, and transferred to 
every department of the University would, of itself, suffice 
to revolutionize our system of education, and rais^ uv a new 
race of thinkers, and men. library of congress 



028 316 270 9 



